


When Words Fail

by funnygirlthatbelle13



Series: When Words Fail [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb's Backstory Angst, Mental Health Issues, Sleepover Talk, some body dysmorphia, these kids are trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 05:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19941058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funnygirlthatbelle13/pseuds/funnygirlthatbelle13
Summary: Jester and Caleb end up taking a watch together one night, and Caleb ends up sharing some of his feelings with her. Jester is unprepared to deal with comforting him, but she does her best.





	When Words Fail

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, y'all. So in order for this to work, we're all just gonna pretend that Leomund's Tiny Hut isn't a thing because I didn't want to have to write around it. I didn't forget it; I just actively chose to ignore the spell lol.

Jester woke up naturally in the wee hours of the morning, ready to take the final watch with whoever else was up. As she looked around, everyone was either asleep or falling asleep. Beau was lying on her stomach, mouth hanging open wide. Yasha was sprawled out flat on her back. Caduceus and Fjord were laying back to back, and Nott was curled up in a ball nearby. As she mentally tallied them all up, the snapping of a large branch to her left caused her to snap her head around.

“Scheiße,” the familiar voice of Caleb muttered.

“Oh my god, Caleb, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” she whispered at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, staring down at his feet as he moved closer to her. Jester knew that eye contact was hardly Caleb’s favorite, but the way he averted his eyes seemed odd even for him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, more gently.

“Ja, ja, ja, everything’s wonderful,” he assured her, sitting down as he did so.

Jester raised an eyebrow in his direction. Wonderful wasn’t exactly a word she heard him use regularly. Sensing her disbelief, he continued.

“I, uh, I had to go take a-a piss, and I ended up getting lost in thought;that’s all.”

Though she might have once believed him, she could read him a lot better now. She knew that when he stared out into the darkness, his eyes barely registering what was going on around him, these were the times he was deep in thought. However, she also knew that directly asking him what he was thinking about wouldn’t lead to an answer, so instead she looked up at the stars dotting the sky.

“Okay. Do you wanna take watch with me?” Caleb nodded and sat down next to her, still lost in his own thoughts.It took quite some time, but eventually, he spoke.

“Did you ever have that experience where you woke up one morning, or you tried to do something you’d done every day of your life before, and all of a sudden you realize that you’re not a little kid anymore?”

Well, that was certainly not what she had been expecting. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“Well, I remember when I got too big to sit on my momma’s lap,” she offered, knowing that it was probably far from what Caleb was thinking but not knowing what else she could offer. He turned to her as he chuckled, smiling as he looked at her. It always puzzled Jester how he could show so much affection and yet still look so sad.

“Jester, how old are you?” he asked softly, so softly that she almost didn’t hear him.

“Twenty-one,” she said, turning back towards the stars. Caleb had begun to fidget, and she was familiar enough with his behavior to know that maintaining eye contact would simply stress him out.

“Twenty-one,” he repeated under his breath. He chuckled softly, more to himself than for her. “You know, in some ways, I am much older than you, but sometimes…” he trailed off, and Jester dared to sneak a glance at him. He wasn’t looking at her, but rather at his own rather filthy hands.

“What have I told you,” he asked her, sounding unsure even as he said it, “About my past?”

“Caleb, you have a perfect memory; you don’t need me to-“

“I want to make sure that we are on the same page,” he interrupted before going quiet, curling into himself.

“Well,” she began, unsure of where this was going. Caleb didn’t like to talk about his past unless it directly had to do with something that the group might be facing. “I know that your name was Bren and you went to the Academy and that you fell in love with Astrid and Trent Ikithon was training you to be a scourger and he experimented with putting crystals in your body and you went crazy?”

“That is… an abbreviated version of what happened. But yes, that is all correct.” There was a long, long pause as Jester waited for him to collect his thoughts.

“Never go to an asylum, Jester. It-it isn’t the kind of place you should see.”

Truthfully, this piece of advice stunned Jester. When Caleb had told them that he had gone crazy, she hadn’t taken it too seriously. Caleb was always his own harshest critic, so she had assumed that he had simply been referring to his anxiety and issues with fire.

“Were you there for, like a while?” she asked, “Like, for a month?”

He shook his head, actively avoiding looking at her now.

“A year?” He shook his head even more vigorously.

“Nein, over a decade.”

Jester didn’t know much of anything about mental health, but even she knew that that wasn’t good.

“Oh.”

There was another stretch of silence in the conversation as Jester pondered what to say. This was much more up Caduceus’ alley than her own. But since she had no idea what to say, she instead tried to imagine what sort of state her friend must have been in back then. Had he hallucinated? Had he needed to be restrained so he didn’t hurt himself? Had he sat in a corner, silent and alone for all those years?

“You know, it’s funny,” Caleb said after a while, “Two thirds of my life… crystal clear. I remember everything down to the minute. But for all that time I was there, I have thirty, maybe forty memories that… I’m pretty sure are real.”

Jester turned to stare at him now. The embers of the campfire were low, but her dark vision enabled her to see the tears glistening in his eyes.

“It’s not funny-it’s stupid, but there are times that I think that I have plenty of time; I’m only twenty-two. Or I try to run real fast, or something because I’m young, ja? But then I remember that I’m in my fucking thirties and I-“ He trailed off, and Jester continued to stare at him. She vaguely remembered Nott saying that when they had first met, Caleb had just been a scared little boy. At the time, it didn’t make any sense to her. But now, she was starting to understand just a little bit. Hesitantly, she put her arm around him. Touch was always a gamble with Caleb, especially when he was upset. But much to her surprise, he practically melted into her arms in a way that was typically reserved for Nott. Jester held him close, listening as he took big, deep breaths.

“You know,” she said, “Maybe this is something you and Nott can talk about together? You can have a wrong body club or something!”

“Ja, but she woke up as a completely different species; I’m just old.”

“Thirty isn’t that old,” she assured him.

“Thirty-three,” he corrected from his place in her arms.

“Thirty-three isn’t that old either; my momma has clients who are way older than that.”

They sat in a fairly comfortable silence for some time. Caleb made no attempt to remove himself from her embrace, and Jester soon began to run her fingers through his hair the way she had seen Nott do it sometimes.

“Caleb, do you remember what you looked like… before?” she asked, not entirely sure if she wanted to know.

“Ja, ja… I do,” Caleb mumbled brushing some hair out of his face as he pulled away from her, “I can show you.” He whispered an incantation under his breath and, in a moment, transformed himself into a much, much younger version of himself.

He was a few inches shorter now than normal, still one growth spurt away from reaching his full height. His entire body from his neck down to his feet was covered, as he wore a turtleneck, pants, and a long robe that went to his feet. Under all of that, she knew that the faint scars she had begun to grow accustomed to seeing were probably much, much worse. The hair felt all wrong, shaved on the sides with just a little bit on top; the exact opposite of how Caleb looked nowadays. His face, which had been quite gaunt when they had first met, was practical skeletal now. He was so pale, so sunken in, and yet she could still see a hint of baby fat lingering around his cheeks. He was so thin, so pale, so young…

“Caleb, you were just a baby,” she whispered, going to wrap her arms around the illusion before correcting and reaching those extra few inches higher. Though she could tell he was startled, he didn’t shrink away from the contact.

“I was seventeen,” he muttered, though whether that was to rebuke or confirm her statement, she couldn’t tell.

“Caleb,” Jester began, but she didn’t know how to convey the complicated mix of thoughts in her head. I’m sorry? It wasn’t your fault? We love you no matter what? I’m going to smack Trent Ikithon was a razor-edged lollipop next time I see him? It didn’t seem like enough.

“Danke,” Caleb whispered after quite some time.

As she pulled out of the hug, he let his illusion drop. Now, knowing what he had looked like, she understood a bit better what he’d been talking about. Thirty-three may not be old, but to wake up one day and have wrinkles starting to etch themselves into your face? It seemed like a horrible nightmare. In fact, she remembered reading a book like that when she was little, and it had made her cry. Now she wanted to cry again, as she watched the real life version of the story unfold, Caleb blinking frantically as he tried to pull himself together.

“Please do not mention this to the others,” he said, “I, uh, do not want them to think I am even more fragile than they already do.”

“Oh, Caleb, we don’t think you’re fragile,” she assured him, “I think you’re really pretty strong.”

That made him smile, though not in the way she had hoped. He was laughing at himself, a short, harsh bark of laughter that Jester couldn’t help but find unsettling.

“I’m not joking, Caleb!”

“Jester,” he said as he turned to look at her, “The only reason I haven’t died yet is because you and Caduceus and everyone keep using your spells and potions on me.” Something in the way he spoke about his own life made her feel somehow sadder than she already was, and she turned towards the road they were supposed to be keeping an eye on.

There was a brief pause, then: “Did I say something wrong?”

Jester turned back to him, surprised. She was even more surprised when she saw him, attentively watching her like she so often saw when he was trying to figure out how to solve a puzzle. Caleb was nice, but she had never seen him take such an active interest in someone’s emotional state like this.

“We don’t heal you because we feel like we have to, ya know,” she said, “We do it because we care about keeping our little family together.”

“I have spent many years, many, many years feeling-feeling as though I do not deserve to be alive. Realistically, I-I should’ve been dead a long time ago.”

“But you still don’t need to talk about yourself like you talk about the horses!” Jester shot back at him, “We don’t care about our spell slots or the gold it costs to get healing potions. We-I-we all just want to keep the group together. Don’t you remember how sad we all were after Molly died? Can you imagine how sad we’d all be? How sad Nott would be?”

Caleb smiled as he listened to her ranting at him. Though she was obviously upset, Jester recognized that smile. It was an expression she had seen him wear before under several different circumstances. It was the same face he made when someone paid him a compliment, when a child was nearby, when anybody else might have said I love you to their friends and loved ones; it was the expression for when words failed him.

“It’s not funny, Caleb,” she muttered. He sighed.

“You’re right. I just… I have spent a long time feeling like I am a horrible, disgusting person. But I-I don’t… always anymore. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you. I often forget, uh, how I must sound to someone else. But I promise… I promise, Jester, I am getting better. Or, I am trying to.”

And as he said that, Caleb reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently in his own. Jester smiled, any anger towards Caleb faded away. She watched as he averted his eyes away from her and towards the forest they had set up camp by. Perhaps it was the extremely low light or the memory of the illusory Bren still fresh in her memory, but Caleb looked extremely tired.

“You should get some rest, Caleb.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “You look exhausted. And besides, it’s not like you can see in the dark.” Caleb smiled and squeezed her hand again.

“Goodnight, Jester. And thank you.”

He stood up and began to undo his bedroll next to Nott’s. Jester watched him as he laid down next to his goblin momma.

“Frumpkin will stay up and watch with you,” Caleb said as he laid down, poofing his cat onto this plane, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Caleb.” Jester watched as Caleb settled into what she hoped was a peaceful night’s rest. He turned onto his side in his sleep, an arm wrapping around Nott as he did so. Jester grinned as she watched the tender moment. Seeing Nott and Caleb in one of their sweet moments was one of the rare pleasures she took pleasure in when she got the chance. The Mighty Nein was a big, bizarre family, and Jester enjoyed watching her weird big brother being so comfortably a part of it. Not that Caleb didn’t regularly show how he cared for all of them in his own way, but his techniques were sometimes hard to pick up on, so it was extra nice when he was more traditionally lovey.

Convinced that no one was awake except her and Frumpkin, Jester pulled out her sketchbook and some ink. Opening up to a blank page, she closed her eyes for a moment before starting to sketch. For the rest of her watch, Jester sketched and wrote a note to the Traveler. On the left hand page, she had two figures standing side by side. On the left was Bren, standing tall and proud in his elegant robe. He had a proud expression except for his exceptionally sad eyes. Next to him stood Caleb, who was slightly hunched and holding a book close to his chest. For his face, she had replicated his when words fail smile. On the opposite page, she had written a note in Infernal.

_Dear Traveler,_

_Tonight was totally crazy! Caleb and I had a super deep conversation about his past. It was weird. I felt super out of my element but I’m glad that Caleb felt like he could trust me. I think I’m starting to understand what you told me about beauty and sadness. Caleb is sad still because of all the bad things people did to him when he was Bren, but without all of that happening, he would be a totally different person. I don’t think Bren would be friends with Nott or would let Beau use him as a pillow or have gone to Shady Creek Run to rescue us. I hate that those people hurt Caleb, but I’m glad he’s not an assassin for the Empire. He can be super scary, especially when one of us is hurt or in danger. I bet he’d be even scarier as an assassin._

_I don’t know if Caleb feels the same way about it. He doesn’t seem like he wants to be an assassin, but I don’t think he realizes that he wouldn’t be the same if it all hadn’t happened. Do you think you could help me explain that to him, that we’d all probably be dead if it weren’t for him? I don’t know why, but I feel like it’s important that he needs to know that it all happened for a reason._

_It’s probably nothing. I’m probably just being silly. I don’t know, Traveler. All I know is that I don’t want anything bad to happen to our family. And I know it’s not like Caleb is gonna time travel so he can stop his past from happening. I just worry a little that Caleb is going to do something stupid because of his past. And I don’t want that, cuz then he’ll just be even sadder._

_Do you think we’ll all be happy one day, Traveler? I mean, the whole group at the same time? I think Caduceus is pretty happy, but he’d be one hundred percent happy once we figure out how to help his home. I know that all that Nott wants is to be a halfling again so she can be with her family. I think Yasha, Beau, and I are all happy as long as we all stay together. And I’m pretty sure Fjord will be happy once Uk’otoa gets off his back, but there might be more that he wants that he hasn’t told us about. And what about Caleb? I don’t know if he has a goal that’d make him happy. Is there anything we can do to help?_

Jester felt a gentle, familiar hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see the green cloaked figure she had grown up with. She grinned at the Traveler.

“You are an extremely thoughtful friend,” he said with a smile, “Your friends are lucky to have you. Do not worry yourself too much about making your friends happy. You do that just by being you. Just keep being supportive, keep smiling, and keep making mischief where you can, and your friends’ happiness will grow.”

“Do you really think that I’m enough?” she asked him.

“My child,” he told her, “You have been blessed with many gifts. Many of your more… fantastical gifts are from me, but I didn’t choose you randomly. From the first time I saw you when you were just a child, you were already exemplifying some of the greatest qualities a person could have. You have always been kind, quirky, a troublemaker; without those qualities, I would never have found you.”

Jester felt her cheeks grow warm with his praise. “Thank you. I hope that they will be open to it.”

The Traveler chuckled warmly. “My child, you have already opened up so many hearts, and I know you will continue to help them all grow. Your friends are a sad bunch, but you are helping them to see the joy and the beauty in the world. Just keep being yourself, Jester. Keep pulling pranks, keep telling jokes, and when words fail, keep smiling.”

“I’ll try,” she said with a smile. He smiled back.

“That’s all you need to do,” he said with a smile as he disappeared. And as he disappeared, she could see the beginnings of the sun rising over the horizon.

“Mornin’, Jessie,” Fjord said with a yawn from behind. Jester turned back to where her friends were camping to find that they were all in the process of getting up.

“Good morning!” she said cheerfully.

“You, uh,” Fjord yawned, “You stayed up by yourself?”

“Oh no, Caleb was up with me for a while, but I sent him to bed cuz he was super sleepy.”

That answer seemed to satisfy whatever curiosity Fjord seemed to have. Jester glanced over at Caleb, who seemed to pause his packing when he noticed her gaze. He smiled at her, that same smile he’d done last night that conveyed more than words ever could. She smiled back at him, hoping that her face conveyed just as much. And if the way Caleb smiled to himself as they continued to pack was any indication, she did a pretty good job. As they all clambered onto the cart, Jester felt tension she hadn’t realized she had been carrying release.

Her friends had and continued to live pretty fucked up lives, but she would always be there, ready with a joke or a comforting word. And when words failed? Then she would smile.

**Author's Note:**

> ..... so that's what I've got! I might write a sequel fic that's this story from Caleb's POV, but that sure as hell won't happen if I don't think that people enjoyed it. So please please please tell me what you thought! <3


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